This specification describes technologies relating to search results processing.
The Internet provides access to a wide variety of resources, for example, video files, image files, audio files, or Web pages. Search engines are used to search these resources. For example, digital images that satisfy a user's informational need can be identified by a search engine in response to receiving a search query. The search queries are usually in the form of text, e.g., one or more query terms. The search system selects and scores resources based on their relevance to the search query and on their importance or quality relative to other resources and provides search results that link to the selected resources. The search results are typically ordered according to the scores and presented according to this order.
Search systems can also provide search query suggestions to users to help users satisfy their informational needs. As used herein, the term “query suggestion” is suggested data for a query that can be used to refine a search or refine a search strategy. Some search systems provide query suggestions in the form of a list of query suggestions as the user is typing a query. A user device typically sends inputs to a search system with each keystroke, and the search system provides the query suggestions with prefixes that match the entered characters. The user can select one of the query suggestions from the list without having to type the entire query suggestion. Once received, the user device displays these suggestions for user selection.